The invention relates to a gas valve unit for adjusting a volumetric gas flow supplied to a gas burner of a gas appliance, in particular a gas cooking appliance, wherein the gas valve unit has a valve body in which valve body at least two valve seats of open/close valves of the gas valve unit are embodied, and in which valve body at least two throttle points each having at least one throttle opening are embodied.
Gas valve units of the aforesaid type are described, for example, in the publications EP0818655A2 and WO2004063629A1. By means of gas valve units of this type the volumetric gas flow supplied to a gas burner of a gas cooking appliance can be controlled in a plurality of stages. In this case the volumetric gas flow possesses a reproducible magnitude at each stage. The through-flow cross-section of the gas valve unit overall—and hence the magnitude of the volumetric gas flow—is set by opening or closing specific open/close valves of the gas valve unit and thereby releasing or interrupting the gas flow through specific throttle openings.
The known generic gas valve units are of complex design and are suitable solely for actuation by means of an electronic control unit. With this approach each open/close valve is assigned an electromagnet which is energized and deenergized by the electronic control unit and opens or closes the respective open/close valve.